> ## Documentation Index
> Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://docs.controlplane.com/llms.txt
> Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further.

# GVC (Global Virtual Cloud)

> Global Virtual Clouds (GVCs) group cloud providers and locations for workload deployment. Covers domain assignment, pull secrets, and multi-cloud isolation.

## Overview

A Global Virtual Cloud ([GVC](/reference/gvc)) defines a set of cloud providers and deployment [locations](/reference/location).

Creating a GVC builds a unified multi-cloud environment from the selected [locations](/reference/location). [Workloads](/concepts/workload) deployed to the GVC can be served from those [locations](/reference/location).

Each [org](/reference/org) can have multiple GVCs, each with its own set of [locations](/reference/location).

A [domain name](/reference/domain) configured at the org level can be assigned to a GVC for routing. Each domain is associated with exactly one GVC at a time. Traffic is routed to [workloads](/concepts/workload) using the assigned [domain name](/reference/domain).

## Benefits

* GVCs enable your [workload](/concepts/workload) to be deployed easily to multiple cloud providers and locations:
  * Choose providers such as AWS, Azure, and GCP.
  * Select [locations](/reference/location) close to your end users.
  * Select the [locations](/reference/location) that fulfill your workload requirements.
  * Improve availability if a cloud provider experiences an outage.
  * Configure granular scaling behavior for your [workload](/concepts/workload).

## Domain Name

[Domains](/reference/domain) are configured at the [org](/reference/org) level and routed to workloads via [domain route configuration](/reference/domain#path-based-routing). Workloads receive default endpoints under the domain `cpln.app`; you can configure a custom [domain](/reference/domain) when you want to route your own hostname.

## Pull Secrets

Pull secrets are [secrets](/reference/secret) assigned to a GVC and used by [workloads](/concepts/workload) when authentication is required to pull an image from a private registry. Only the [Docker](/reference/secret#docker), [Amazon ECR](/reference/secret#ecr), and [GCP](/reference/secret#google-cloud-platform-gcp) [secret](/reference/secret) types are supported.

<Tip>If the image was pushed to the Control Plane registry for the same [org](/reference/org), no secret is required.</Tip>

A GVC can have multiple pull secrets assigned. A [workload's container](/reference/workload/containers) will use the appropriate secret when pulling images from a private registry. If multiple secrets are configured, the container attempts each secret in sequence.

If authentication fails, the deployment is not updated, and image pulls retry with exponential backoff from 10 seconds up to 5 minutes (e.g., 10 seconds, 20 seconds, 40 seconds, etc.).

## Location Routing

By default, traffic is routed to the nearest healthy location using latency-based DNS geo-routing. For more advanced routing scenarios, you can configure [location routing options](/reference/gvc#location-routing-options) on a per-GVC basis to control priority-based failover, adjust traffic distribution with latency offsets, and set latency thresholds for location availability.

## Reference

Visit the [GVC reference](/reference/gvc) page for additional details.